I have to hand it to you on that one. Save points suck. I understand when it's part of the game's strategy to make you start over from a certain point if you die, but if you have to leave the console, you shouldn't be penalized for it. It's possible, too: look at handhelds. Final Fantasy V on the Gameboy allows you to do a real save on the world map or at a save point, but at any point you can "quicksave," which shuts off the console after saving your progress. You can come back to the game, but when you do that quicksave data is erased, meaning that you either have to quicksave again or find a real save point when you turn off the console.

Then there's the PSP, which actually caches wherever you are in a game when you turn off the console, whether you saved or not. I'm not sure if it requires a memory stick to do this (my guess is yes, but I've never tried it). It's a big advantage, especially because the thing doesn't have a warning before you run out of battery, it just flashes a battery icon and immediately shuts itself off.

Dadoo writes: I work in the IT department of a small company (~250 employees). We're trying to hire a programmer, but our management is telling us candidates are asking for too much money. According to a salary survey they have, we're paying more than other companies our area, and the candidates are asking for much more. Some are asking for twice as much as the highest-paid person in our department. Personally, I think these salary surveys are designed to put employees at a disadvantage, so I'd like to ask the taboo question: how much do you make? Answer anonymously, if you feel you need to, but include your location, your actual job description and/or title, your years of experience, and your salary.

Posted
by
kdawsonon Monday April 16, 2007 @02:01AM
from the whole-lotta-shakin dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Two separate efforts using technology to protect people from earthquakes have recently been in the news. At the University of Leeds, UK, researchers will use nanotechnology and RFID tags to build a 'self-healing' house in Greece. The house's walls will contain nanoparticles that turn into a liquid when squeezed under pressure, flow into cracks, and then harden to form a solid material. The walls will also host a network of wireless sensors and RFID tags that can alert the residents to an imminent earthquake. Meanwhile, another team at the Washington University in St. Louis is using a wireless sensor network to limit earthquake damages."

LMFAO writes: Microsoft, a veteran defendant of epic antitrust battles in the United States and Europe, is urging regulators to consider scuttling Google's plan to buy DoubleClick, an online advertising company. Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview yesterday that Google's purchase of DoubleClick would combine the two largest online advertising distributors and thus "substantially reduce competition in the advertising market on the Web." — New York Times

An anonymous reader writes: Intel is set to launch an ultra-mobile PC dubbed Mobile Internet Device or MID which will run on Linux. The PDA-sized devices will target "consumers and prosumers" instead of mobile professionals.From the story: MID tablets will run a simplified 'finger-friendly' user interface optimised for the small screens, based on the Gnome desktop but with an Intel-developed 'master user interface' layer to serve as an equivalent to the desktop.

Wangster02 writes: "The Future of Hollywood goes in depth about what we will be seeing in the next 5 years — Internet Based TV and how it will be ad supported. Internet TV is not far away (We have web series already and that will only grow, plus full distribution via the Net), and it is now time to start talking it about is so we do not suffer the same problems current American TV does."